Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

WHY THERE WAS NO MUSIC

When the time comes to have lunch or dinner, my friend Horsie observes the following routine. He approaches the table with his mouth slightly ajar (though there’s a big difference between that and a smile). He sits himself down and lowers his head until it is parallel with the table. Then he begins to eat. He makes very little noise as he chews, conveying food into his mouth at a rapid pace without once raising his head, maintaining that parallel relationship throughout the proceedings. If you try talking to him, he will answer you with his head down.

That’s why, when Horsie eats, we describe him as dining. Dining is a serious business: to do it you need to dress appropriately, sit at a proper table, and eat nourishing food in the right way — there’s quite a technique to it, in other words. But eating is altogether a more casual proposition: you can eat at a table or you can eat in the doorway, or you can take your bowl and go round and eat at the neighbor’s — that’s what we often used to do when we were small. Sometimes we’d even take our bowls into the toilet, eating as we had a crap.

In Horsie’s case, he never eats but always dines. From the time I first knew him — we were only ten then — he had already begun to dine, and he took it as seriously as a homework assignment. He would lower his head — even then his head already maintained a parallel relationship to the table — and eat very deliberately, with rapt attention. When he’d finished, his bowl would be as clean as if he had washed it, the table in front of him would look as though it had already been wiped, and the fish bones would be lying in his plate as neatly as a fish itself.

That’s Horsie for you. We tend to walk hurriedly along the street, as though we always have a train to catch, but Horsie’s never in a rush, he’s always just strolling, hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed on a point way ahead in the distance, walking along at a calm and leisurely pace. That’s the way he is, never in a hurry no matter what he’s doing, and meticulous too. When he’s talking, for example, he enunciates every word clearly, with balanced phrasing, and expresses himself with care.

Horsie had never fooled around with girls. He was twenty-six when he met Lü Yuan, who by that time was already a familiar face to the rest of us. We were having a meal together and had invited Lü Yuan, and she had brought along two other young women. There were five of us guys, and we were mentally taking their measure, and they, the three girls, were mentally choosing between us. So there we were, eating and gabbing and kidding around, each of us trying our best to put on a good show, the guys waxing eloquent, the girls posturing and preening.

Horsie alone said nothing at all, because he was engaged in the serious business of dining, his head parallel to the table, a faint smile on his face as he listened to us chatting and joking. That evening he didn’t say more than a few sentences, and he didn’t actually dine very extensively, eating only half a dozen shrimp and washing them down with a glass of beer.

We soon forgot about him. At the beginning we would cast him a glance from time to time. He’d be slowly savoring a mouthful of beer, or he would pick up a shrimp with his chopsticks and pop it into his mouth, and a moment later pucker up his cheeks and purse his lips, at which point we stopped looking at him. Then, after we had pretty much forgotten he was there, Lü Yuan suddenly gave a cry of astonishment. Her eyes bulging, she pointed a finger at Horsie’s table setting. It was then we noticed a row of shrimp, five in all, big and small alike, lined up in front of him. Transparent shrimp shells lay sparkling in the light, deposited back on the plate by Horsie after he had cleanly extracted the meat inside. Seeing this, the other two girls gasped with surprise.

Horsie then picked up the last shrimp on the platter. His arm stretched across the table at the same height as his lowered head, and when his chopsticks gripped the shrimp, his elbow twitched with the speed of a lobster’s pincers and he deposited the shrimp in his mouth.

Now he raised his head, and calmly looked at us flabbergasted spectators. His lips closed, his cheeks bulged, his mouth wriggled like an intestine, and his Adam’s apple made a fluid up-and-down movement. Eventually, his bulging cheeks contracted and his Adam’s apple rose. It lingered a moment in that elevated position as he swallowed, a cautious, dignified expression on his face.

His Adam’s apple slipped down and his mouth opened. Then came the moment that left us stupefied: he disgorged what appeared to be a complete and undamaged shrimp, but — and this was the crucial point — it had nothing inside it. He put this intact but meatless shrimp on the table, next to the neat row formed by the other five — equally hollow — crustaceans. Again, a string of exclamations came from the three girls.

Just six months later, Lü Yuan became Horsie’s wife. The other girls at the dinner got married too, to guys we didn’t know.

· · ·

BY MARRYING HORSIE, Lü Yuan detached him from us. From then on, when we sat down to a meal together, we were no longer joined by the avid diner. To be honest, we couldn’t quite get used to it. We had begun to appreciate how striking were those two parallel lines across from us, Horsie’s head and the tabletop — the unchanging distance between Horsie’s head and the table surface so like that between a boarding jetty and the shore. Sometimes, when Horsie sat by the window and sunlight shone in from outside, we noticed that Horsie’s head had a twin on the table’s surface: a black shadow, slightly flattened at its extremities, which slowly shrunk to the thinnest of strips as the light shifted. We had never seen such a long and thin head, not even in a cartoon. Another time we were sitting in a dimly lit room and once, when I stood up, I bumped into the low-hanging ceiling lamp. The top of my head stung with a scorching pain, and the lamp itself swayed so violently that the shadow of Horsie’s head swung to and fro on the table in crazy motion for a good two minutes, performing in that time practically all the headshaking Horsie would ever need to do.

After Horsie got married, Guo Bin was the only one of us who stayed in touch with him on a regular basis. Often, in the early evening, wearing a gray windbreaker, his hands in his pockets, he would walk from one end to the other of the longest street in town and arrive outside Horsie’s apartment. Then he would curl his long fingers and knock on the door.

Guo Bin told his friends that the atmosphere in Horsie’s new home was entirely Lü Yuan’s creation. From the bedroom to the living room, the walls were crowded with close-ups of Lü Yuan. The earliest photo had been taken when she was just one month old and the others dated from each of the succeeding years, for a current total of twenty-three. In only three of the prints could one see Horsie’s smile, and next to it was the more enchanting face of Lü Yuan. “Unless you look carefully,” Guo Bin said, “you won’t notice Horsie at all.”

Guo Bin went on to tell us that the furniture in Horsie’s house followed a white theme, decorated with pink highlights. The carpet was beige, the walls were beige, and even Horsie’s clothes — the clothes purchased after he was married — had beige as the keynote. Guo Bin attributed all of this to Lü Yuan’s preferences and recommendations. “Did you ever see Horsie wear beige before?” Guo Bin asked.

“Absolutely not.” He answered his own question right away. “Now that Horsie dresses in beige,” he went on, “he looks heavier than before, paler too.”

Guo Bin said that Horsie’s apartment was like a single girl’s dorm room, with all kinds of knickknacks displayed: “From the bookshelves to the cabinets, there’s little animals everywhere: flannel, glass, bamboo — you name it. There’s even a big black flannel bear on top of the bed. But as for Horsie’s things, you won’t see so much as a pen of his on the table. It’s only when his clothes are drying on the balcony that you have a chance of finding some trace of his property in the apartment.” Guo Bin gave a smirk at the thought of the stuffed bear. “Could it be that even as a married woman,” he asked us — and himself too—“Lü Yuan still hugs her bear when she goes to sleep?”

As time went on, Guo Bin’s familiarity with Horsie’s apartment grew steadily more complete, and he would brag that even if he were to walk around the apartment for half an hour with his eyes closed he could still manage to avoid knocking into a single chair. What’s more, he said he knew how items were distributed and what things could be found in what cabinet, and if anyone was curious he could provide a detailed inventory.

“There’s a drawer in their bedside table,” he said, “which holds all their identity papers and their bankbooks. It’s locked. Under the drawer is a pile of Lü Yuan’s panties and bras. There are stockings and scarves there too.”

As for Horsie’s underwear, socks, and scarves, there was no special place reserved for them, for they were crammed into a wardrobe with the rest of his stuff — winter clothes, summer clothes, spring and autumn clothes — all in a single drawer, no less. One time, Guo Bin saw for himself the immense effort involved if Horsie wanted to put his hands on a simple undershirt. It was as though he were searching through a garbage heap for discarded clothes, first sticking his head into the wardrobe, then his shoulders too, eventually emerging with just a pair of underpants in his hand. He tossed them aside, then took his entire collection of clothes in his arms and dumped everything on the floor. He knelt in front of this little mountain of clothing and spent another half hour rummaging around before at last he managed to find his undershirt.

Guo Bin gave us to understand that only he could grasp the subtle relations between Horsie and Lü Yuan. “You people just can’t imagine what goes on between them.” He gave an example to back up his claim.

Guo Bin was sitting in a chair when he began to tell us his story. He stood up, walked around in a little circle, and then looked at his three friends. Two days earlier, he said, he was about to knock on the door of Horsie’s apartment when he heard the sound of sobbing inside — low but prolonged sobs that he felt could only have been triggered by some heartrending sorrow. So he let his hand drop to his side and stood outside Horsie’s door until the sobs subsided, until he could not hear them anymore. All this time he wondered why Lü Yuan was crying. What could have made her so sad? Had Horsie been mistreating her? But he hadn’t heard Horsie yelling at her — in fact, he hadn’t heard any talking at all.

After the sobbing had ceased, Guo Bin reckoned that Lü Yuan must now have dried her tears, so he raised his hand once again and knocked on the door. It was Horsie who opened up, and what astonished Guo Bin was that Horsie’s eyes were wet, while Lü Yuan was sitting comfortably on the sofa with the TV remote in her hand. It was only then he realized the person who had just been crying was not Lü Yuan, but Horsie.

“Do you get it?” Guo Bin asked his friends, a smile on his lips. Then he went back to his chair and sat down, very much at ease.

ON THIS PARTICULAR DAY, that’s to say the afternoon of June 30, 1996, Horsie stopped by Guo Bin’s apartment. His wife, Lü Yuan, had left for Shanghai the previous day and wouldn’t be back for a week, so Horsie, being all alone, thought of Guo Bin, because Guo Bin had an extensive collection of videos and Horsie wanted to borrow a few to watch at home and enliven this period of enforced bachelorhood.

Guo Bin had been having a nap. Wearing only a pair of jockey shorts, he opened the door and gave a long yawn. “Did Lü Yuan get off okay?” he asked, his eyes puffy from sleep.

Horsie was a bit taken aback. He wondered how Guo Bin knew Lü Yuan was out of town. “How did you know she’s away?” he asked.

Guo Bin rubbed his eyes. “You told me she had a trip planned.”

“When was that?” Horsie didn’t remember this at all.

“Then it must have been Lü Yuan.”

As Guo Bin said this, he went into the toilet and had a pee, not bothering to close the door. Horsie sat on the sofa and watched as Guo Bin gave another yawn, rubbing his eyes again with one hand and tugging the toilet chain with the other. Amid the din of the flushing water, Guo Bin came out of the bathroom and shuffled over to the sofa. He hesitated a moment, then turned around and lay back down in bed.

Horsie noticed a camcorder in the corner by the balcony. “Whose camera is that?” he asked.

“It’s mine,” Guo Bin said. “I bought it last month.”

Horsie nodded. “I’d like to borrow a few videos,” he said.

“What kind do you want? Action or romance?”

Horsie thought about this. “Both.”

“Help yourself,” Guo Bin said.

He told Horsie the thrillers were on the third and fourth shelves and the love stories on the fifth shelf and the right-hand side of the sixth shelf. Guo Bin rubbed away gum from his eyes and yawned.

Horsie walked over to the bookcase and scanned its contents. He took out two tapes, one from the third shelf and one from the fifth. When he turned around, Guo Bin seemed to have drifted off to sleep. He hesitated a moment, then said quietly, “I’m taking two tapes.”

Guo Bin opened his eyes. He propped himself up and his head tilted in Horsie’s direction. “Go back to sleep,” Horsie said. “I’m off now.”

A smile appeared on Guo Bin’s face, an odd kind of smile. “How about something erotic?” he asked.

Horsie smiled too. Guo Bin jumped out of bed, knelt on the floor, and pulled a carton out from underneath the bed. When he opened the box, Horsie could see it was filled halfway with videos. “All porn,” Guo Bin said proudly. “Is it Hong Kong and Taiwan movies you want?” he asked. “Or foreign?”

“I don’t know.”

Guo Bin stood up. Seeing Horsie at a loss to know what to choose, he patted him on the shoulder. “Just pick one,” he said, “any one you like.”

Horsie chose one at random. In bed that evening, he first watched a love story that moved him to tears and then watched a thriller that made his hair stand on end. He reserved the porn movie for the finale.

Horsie inserted the video into the warm VCR and went to the bathroom as the tape rewound. By the time he came out, the tape had begun to play. He saw a mass of snowflakes, and after a few moments a picture appeared on the screen: a naked woman lying on her back, her head buried in a pillow, her legs together. A man’s arm moved on the left side of the frame; shoulders appeared, then the man’s back. The man walked toward the bed, put a hand on the mattress to steady himself, then clambered onto the bed. He separated the woman’s legs and mounted her.

Horsie heard a little groan as the man began to move back and forth on the woman’s body. He was struck by the way the man’s buttocks trembled, as though shivering with cold. Horsie heard the man pant, and the woman too, then constant groaning from the woman. In the following frames there was no significant change, but the bodies clamped together on the bed swayed slightly; a quiver had seized them. This uneventful scene lasted a little longer, until two cries were heard. The bodies now lay glued together, motionless, as though dead. After a little while the man shifted his weight and detached himself from his partner. She gave a long, capricious moan. The man knelt on the bed, his back to the camera; he was doing something with his head lowered.

Horsie realized that their job was done, but … “Why wasn’t there any music?” he wondered.

He thought this very strange. “Can it be that porn flicks don’t have music?”

The man lay down once more, shoulder to shoulder with the woman. They linked feet and pulled a blanket over their naked bodies.

“How was it?” Horsie heard the man ask.

“Fantastic,” the woman answered.

After a moment of silence he suddenly heard his own name spoken. “Am I better than Horsie, then?”

“Oh, no comparison.”

Just as Horsie was wondering if he had imagined it, he heard his name once more. “What’s Horsie like in bed?” the man asked.

“What a pain you are!” She gave him a little punch. “Didn’t I tell you already?”

“I want to hear it again,” the man said.

The woman laughed. “He doesn’t move.”

“What do you mean, he doesn’t move?”

“You won’t leave it alone, will you?” Another laugh.

The man persisted. “What do you mean he doesn’t move?”

“Once he’s in, he just doesn’t move … You’re such a pain.” She gave him another punch.

“What does he do then?”

“He gets on top of me and lies there, not doing anything, just pressing down on me, so hard I can hardly breathe … Satisfied?” the woman asked.

“How long does he spend there on top of you, not doing anything?”

“It varies. There have been a few times when he fell asleep on top of me …”

“What do you do if he falls asleep?”

“I give a heave and push him off … Is that enough for you now?”

They burst out laughing. Then the man sat up. Turning toward the camera, he got out of bed. “Let’s have a look at our recording,” he said.

Horsie recognized the man who came forward. It was Guo Bin. Toward the back of the shot, the woman was now sitting up. Lü Yuan smiled at the camera.

A WEEK LATER, Lü Yuan returned home. As she pushed open the door, she could see Horsie eating his dinner at the table by the balcony. Lü Yuan observed, needless to say, those familiar parallel lines; a bowl of noodles had flushed Horsie’s face to a deep red. She tossed her handbag onto the sofa. “Go fetch my suitcase,” she said.

Horsie raised his head and cast her a glance, then resumed dining. Lü Yuan went into the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and splashed water on her face. She patted her face lightly with the palm of her hand, took some cream from the rack, and massaged her cheeks. When she returned to the living room, Horsie was still meticulously attending to his meal. She looked around. “Where’s my suitcase?” she asked.

Horsie carried on as before, not bothering to look up. “Where’s my suitcase?” Lü Yuan repeated.

Still no answer. Lü Yuan’s voice rose several registers. “Get downstairs now!” she practically bellowed.

Horsie looked up and pulled a tissue from the box on the table. He delicately wiped his mouth. “Why did you say I don’t move?” he asked.

Lü Yuan, having lost her temper, was quite unprepared for this sort of question and did not take it in at all. “Go fetch my suitcase!” she yelled again.

Horsie persisted. “Why did you say I don’t move?”

It began to dawn on Lü Yuan just what had happened. She stopped shouting and looked at Horsie very intently. He took another tissue and wiped the sweat from his face. “Actually I do move …,” he said.

Horsie paused. “At the critical moment, I do move.”

So saying, Horsie lowered his head and attended to the last two mouthfuls of noodles. Lü Yuan quietly went into the bedroom, and after sitting on the bed for a while she quietly went downstairs and brought up the suitcase herself.

There was no further drama. My friend Horsie did not return the videos to Guo Bin, nor did Guo Bin ask for them back. In the weeks that followed, Guo Bin would sometimes, as before, walk the length of the longest street in town, wearing his gray windbreaker. Hands in his pockets, he would arrive outside Horsie’s apartment, curl his long fingers, and knock on the door.